


grow me a garden of roses

by kanzentai



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, M/M, Past Abuse, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 20:36:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3424745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanzentai/pseuds/kanzentai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Adam's a florist, Ronan dreams, Noah plays (a very bad) cupid, and everything smells like flowers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	grow me a garden of roses

**Author's Note:**

> written for [aapi](http://fadinglights-stormynights.tumblr.com/) because she's the best thing ever and i don't have enough words to describe how much she means to me and ugh i'm gonna cry i love you so much.
> 
> SPOILERS for the second and third books because though this fic is set in an AU, there are some elements i've borrowed from canon. i just love pynch with my body and soul pls hold me.

 

Adam traces his fingers over the red roses lying outside his apartment, his touch soft, soft, soft like a whisper, like a secret he can’t, he _won’t_ share. So he buries his face in his knees where they’re drawn up against him and wraps his arms around his legs and lets the faintest of smiles tug at the corners of his chapped lips.

\------

Ronan gets out of the car, curses, and slams the door shut because he’s Ronan; then slams the door again because it’s Gansey’s shitty Camaro. Staring at the flower shop while leaning back against the car, he calls, “Dick, it’s here.”

Gansey’s head pops out of the window and he drops his phone, almost able to hear Helen swearing but not quite caring. They’d spent hours looking for this place, and only Gansey knows the exasperation he’s felt, putting up with Ronan’s incessant glaring and taunting and dashboard kicking. But there’s something about this place… it feels nostalgic, and without any warning, something in Gansey’s heart backflips.

“Lord, yes. Okay. Good,” Gansey says, reaching for his phone, the short separation between them causing him visible discomfort. Helen’s not on the line anymore, but he’s got a few capitalized and angry texts, so he thinks he can call her back later as he opens the note he’d made a night ago, and repeats the long names again, hoping he gets the pronunciations right.

By the time he’s walked over to Ronan, though, Ronan’s scowling. Gansey knows that a scowl is Ronan’s permanent expression, but it’s more distinct now, and clearly directed at the florist’s.

Ronan’s voice reaches him before he can decide which question he wants to ask. “No, shit, I’m not going in there.”

“What? Wait. You are,” Gansey replies, narrowing his eyes at Ronan until he follows Ronan’s gaze and squints at the shop, vaguely able to make out the shape of someone carrying things through the glass. He repeats, “You _are._ ”

Ronan kicks the Pig with his heel, the noise louder in the morning air than it should be, but he follows Gansey anyway, the drag of his shoes against the pavement an undesired addition to the melody of a violin being played in an apartment above and the purrs of a cat somewhere close yet hidden, but it’s real and all the confirmation Gansey needs. He doesn’t have to turn again.

He pushes open the door, not paying much mind to the tinkling of the bell overhead as he tells Ronan off for making a particularly indecent remark about the synonyms of cats; but once he sets his eyes on shop’s interior, he’s amazed. Flowers — red here, yellow there, blue further away, and their smell is draped over the entire shop, pleasant and sweet, and if Gansey thought the outside was impressive, the inside was simply ten times more.

 

An employee walks up to them with a name almost as flowery as the shop, actually, scrawled on her name tag and Ronan moves back as Gansey does his thing: “Hey, I’m Gansey. My sister sent me here to get some, well, delphiniums? Uh, delphin… yeah, those. For Mother’s day, so…”

Ronan passes by shelves of flowers, only some of which he could name: roses, sunflowers, tulips — the easy ones. His knowledge of flowers was pretty minimal, considering the years he’d spent at the Barns. He spots some irises, the kind his mother liked. ( _Likes,_ he reminds himself.)

While others saw the beauty in things worthy of their praise, Ronan was a boy who saw the beauty in what was naught, in between cracks of stone and skin and in reflections that never lied. And what he remembers more than what flower it was, is the smile on his mother’s face while it was placed behind her ear, because even as a child, he knew there was a void in her, but he loved her nevertheless.

Just as he teeters on the edge of introspection, ready to plummet, because that’s who he is, _what_ he is, he sees them: the flowers. The flowers he — the flowers he dreams of — and his heart races, beats faster, louder, harder.

He hadn’t thought they’d actually exist in this world, because more often than not, he preferred to forget about his dreams, but here they are, and something surges in him as he holds a single flower between his fingers.

“Morning glory,” a voice says from beside him. Ronan doesn’t turn, he _knows_ it’s the same boy he saw from outside the shop, the same beautiful boy, his clothes sprinkled with pollen and the side of his arm that Ronan can see, covered in scars, now fading. Ronan pinches the small blossom in his hold tighter.

As the boy next to him reaches for a flower, a morning glory, Ronan notices how gentle and precise the movement is, how thin his wrist seems, how weak his fingers look, yet his grip — firm.

“That’s like a euphemism for —”

“Ronan,” Gansey warns, from the other side of the flower shelf near him, the tone of his voice kindling Pavlovian reactions in Ronan.

There’s a soft laugh, and he glances at the boy with the soundless voice, his heart doing a thing. He’s wearing the same apron the girl from before was, and there’s something about the way he’s holding the flower in his hand that compels Ronan to continue watching, to never stop.

“Affection,” the boy says, his voice softer. “That’s what a morning glory means.”

He turns to Ronan and Ronan looks away, the words in his mind spinning too fast, the world around him moving too quick. His breath falters.

Later, when he passes Gansey by as he pays for a gaudy yet carefully put together bouquet, Ronan drops the flower on the counter, the small thing still fresh except for the places where Ronan’s nails had dug too deep, and he walks out.

\---

When afternoon rolls around and some of the flowers close their petals for the day, Adam realizes he’s been staring at the morning glories every now and then, his mind still lingering on the strange boy — the disparate boy who caused alarm and panic within Adam, yet drew him in, typical, like a moth to a flame — who was in here, so close to him, and he exhales the deep breath he was holding in.

Someone from the back of the shop yells, “Are we out of roses yet?” Adam rushes towards the voice, Orla’s?, and replies, “Yes, ma’am,” without raising his voice, because it just doesn’t seem right to speak in a loud voice in a place so calm and serene and —

Maura’s voice rings in his ears: _flowers need love to grow, don’t they?_

(At 19:28, Blue points at Adam and laughs like she hasn’t _ever_ before, and Adam touches his forehead only to find a post-it note that said _NOW CRUSHING ON A HOttie_ because Noah had run out of space for the last few alphabets and honestly, chasing a dead body around a flower shop while knocking down things wasn’t exactly calm and serene, but, well.)

\---

The next day, Ronan wakes up with the comprehension that he’s in love, a searing headache, and the fucking noise of obnoxiously irrational giggling.

“... _Jesus_.”

Giggling _sunflowers_.

In his _room_.

\---

Blue’s family business was an average sized pretty place that sold flowers they brought in from the best flower suppliers each morning. It was a sweet-smelling comfy corner, and Adam was more than happy to be working there, and the occasional bumps into Blue’s family members and their weird, almost foreign conversations were surreal yet pleasant happenings.

What he didn’t expect, though, was the boy — the translucent, dead — _dead!_ — boy — he began seeing around the shop two days after he started working there. Blue had told him about how the shop was haunted (“...so, we’ve got our own flower boy ghost hanging out here, would that be a problem?”), but Adam never believed in the supernatural, just because he’d never seen anything to warrant his belief or its absence, in it.

This, however, was… _something_. At first, Adam could see the boy while the others clearly couldn’t, then how he floated around, staring at everyone and everything, and for some reason, specifically at Adam.

Noah finally spoke up when Adam and he were the only ones in the shop on a Saturday morning, and Adam had shivered and rubbed his arms to hide the sudden goosebumps that wracked through his body.

“What are you thinking about?” Noah had asked, his tired, somewhat hollow eyes focused on Adam, a small smile gracing his lips. Adam didn’t know if Noah really was tired or if it was a side effect of death, or being dead, or not being alive. The question put him at ease. At least his his mind wasn’t being — _couldn’t be_ read without his consent.

“Nothing. What does a ranunculus mean, again?” Adam asked, scanning through the small flower language pocket guidebook, trying to not look at Noah and memorize the stuff Maura had marked and outlined for him. “Persephone said I’d have to pass this test if I wanted the job permanently.”

“Ah, The Test. _You_ don’t need to worry about it, they love you already.” Noah shrugged, then remembered Adam’s question. “It means, ‘I am dazzled by your charms’, and oh god that just gave me diabetes.”

Adam had raised an eyebrow that almost meant, _son, please, diabetes? eating what?_ angel _cake?_ but repeated the answer anyway.

\---

“Ronan, I need to get some flowers for —”

“Fuck no.”

\---

Adam’s a florist. He likes flowers. He likes their smells and their colours and the momentous emotions ordinary people convey through them. He likes how each flower means something different, how each flower can look different if you add a little this here and a little that there. He likes how different people come in through the same doors but with so many feelings that are overwhelming and overflowing and each blush of a bride and a smile of a husband and a tear of a bereaved and a giggle of a child who respects someone deeply is a bright flower he collects and stores in a garden he calls his own, rooted inside him in a place well hidden.

He gathers them like one would his trophies, or seashells, or stamps of a foreign land, and at the end of every day he peers into this garden and tries to understand each petal, each one. He grows them and wonders if feelings could remain when nothing else would — flowers, bones, air — and he fears the very thought of oblivion. He’s a florist, but he wishes he was something more. He wishes he could catalogue each blossom without ever forgetting, but that’s the thing: he’s a florist, a broken boy whose childhood is a weed that never dies, that coils and twists and overtakes and destroys everything, _everything_. He’s just an ordinary person with extraordinary dreams; and Adam’s a florist and a nobody and that’s all he is. How could he enter another heart when his own one’s dug up and full of holes?

\---

After that, it becomes a routine for Ronan to bring back over-accomplished flowers that had masters degrees in singing and waving, almost like he’s collecting them. (He isn’t.)

So he ends up having 1) roses that sing London Bridge is Falling Down, nonstop, 2) lilies that do seaweed dances and send Ronan flying kisses every five seconds, and 3) an urge to kill everything, living and otherwise, in his twenty mile radius.

The day after the sighing chrysanthemums, it’s roses that sing London Bridge is Falling Down again, but this time, in the flower shop employee’s voice — a voice he’d heard say exactly nine words.

Gansey doesn’t say anything when they see each other in the kitchen-bathroom-laundry that morning, but he looks like he wants to say something, so Ronan waits.

“I heard singing,” Gansey finally says, picking up an empty can of coke from the floor, avoiding Ronan’s gaze.

“I’m practicing to meet the god damned Backstreet Boys.”

Gansey sighs; Ronan knows Gansey hadn’t expected a real reply from him in the first place. “Just Be Safe,” Gansey says, the unseen but clearer than day capitalized meaning of each word sinking into Ronan’s skin.

 

The next day, it’s breakdancing pansies that rap in _that_ voice.

Ronan punches a wall. So much for Just Be Safe.

\---

It’s an absolute coincidence that Ronan ends up in the same flower shop that has been the cause of his unceasing distress for the past two weeks, panting, finding refuge from the monstrosity he’d brought back with him from his dreams. He hadn’t seen one of these for a while because of all the fucked up giggling and dancing things he’d been bringing back, and it scared him more.

“How may I help you?”

_Him. It’s him._

“Oh. _You_. From the other day.”

_He remembers._

Ronan’s heart does a thing — a huge and tingly, yet small, well, thing. He looks at the boy’s name tag and raises an eyebrow, feigns indifference, looks back at his face.

“Is something wrong?”

_Yes. No. Parrish._

_Of course. Not really. Adam._

_Fuck. I like you. Fuck._

He jerks his head and looks outside through the window when he hears the creature getting closer, and he swears, looks at Adam again, just because, and leaves the place.

\---

“Well, I’m simply another dead kid but,” Noah whistles, only his head appearing from behind a work-in-progress banner. “Was that awkward or what?”

Adam breathes in, deep, deeper than ever, more oxygen in his body now than since the past nineteen years, then lets it all out. He closes his eyes and sees tattoos and bruises and morning glories, wonders why _Ronan_ was here. He wonders if he should’ve said something else. He wonders what is it about Ronan that makes him ache and want and — and he wonders. “Noah, it’s really creepy when you do that.”

Noah smiles and mutters a quick apology, and Adam’s surprised how he looks a few years younger and, well, still bodiless.

“But that guy, Rowan? That —” ”Ronan.” “— Ronan, yeah, wow. When did — _wait._ You —”

“No, Noah. No,” Adam says, the realization that comes to both of them at the same time landing on Adam like a meticulously aimed punch to the gut; and he can’t take it. He’s sure it landed on Noah like a feather. Everything lands on Noah like feathers. Noah _is_ a feather.

But Adam’s Adam, and he can’t take it.

\---

Ronan’s a person who works 90% on impulse and pretty much always on anger, but _this_ — this is all because of a dumb voice in his head which keeps going _Adam, Adam_. He scrambles out of the BMW, slams the door shut, breathes in slowly, lets it out. It’s so cold that he can see his breath, the night air chilling in spite of his heavy clothes.

“We’ll be closing soon. What can — _oh_.”

Ronan’s mouth quirks. Adam sets the water sprayer in his hand down and tugs at the rolled up sleeves of his T-shirt. There’s something about Adam, Ronan decides, now that he isn’t here as a clueless shit or being chased by a hideous creature that would like to swallow Ronan in one go, that makes Adam look a little out of place, like he isn’t meant to be here, or anywhere, yet everywhere. Or maybe Ronan’s the one who’s out of place, _isn’t he always_ , and he only knows Adam’s name, but Adam’s slowly making Ronan realize how simple yet complex things are, by just existing.

Ronan walks over to the shelf full of small flowers; tiny things that are smaller than Ronan’s little finger, and he feels the urge to push someone into a wall because of the absence of a FRAGILE: HANDLE WITH CARE sign above these. He picks up a bunch of forget-me-nots that’ve been tied together with a ribbon, not sure why he’s doing it, but doing it nonetheless.

“Did you make this?” Ronan asks, without turning, and picks up another bunch.

“I’m pretty sure photosynthesis made that.”

“Ha.”

Ronan puts one of the bunches back, gently, when the door opens, bell rings, and an old lady walks in.

“Good evening, ma’am. You haven’t visited lately,” Adam says, politeness oozing from every word, and Ronan snorts. Adam ignores him and smiles his best _perfect employee am I_ smile when the lady screeches that her hearing’s been getting worse since her last birthday.

Ronan moves to the far end of the shop; he isn’t fond of deafness, or old people, or people in general, but he manages more often than not. Ronan notes how Adam seemed used to the elderly, his niceties practiced and experienced, yet part genuine, wonders if he’s been given such looks too.

There are more bouquets on this side, Ronan finds, along with stuff scribbled here and there — _urgent, pickup/wed, daisy allergies?, !!!, funeral_ — on post-it notes lying around, and a diary beside the mess that had all the accounts of the shop written down with a neatness that Ronan immediately connects with Gansey, and he gets the notion that Adam’s responsible for this.

Ronan doesn’t touch a thing, simply twirls the forget-me-nots in hand and when he hears the old lady say (scream) goodbye, walks back to the counter. Adam’s on the other side of it, dusting something only he can see off his apron. He runs a hand through his hair then looks up at Ronan, and in that second before he switches to his friendly work smile, he gives off the feeling of being younger, a little raw, but his eyes, sharp, and Ronan doesn’t blink; stashes it without a second’s delay.

Adam’s voice, Adam’s hands, Adam’s lips, Adam’s hair, Adam.

It’s all cached somewhere in Ronan’s heart, a place he’d sealed off to everything since Niall Lynch, and each time he closes his eyes and echoes a memory from inside there, he feels his skin prickling, feels something stirring inside him, feels like he could electrocute something if only he were to touch.

He feels alive.

He knows nothing about this boy with dusty hair and eyes that seem like they have seen things they shouldn’t have, who works in this flower shop, a place where he doesn’t blend in, yet does. Ronan knows nothing about him except his scars and his gestures, his smiles and his laughs, his gasps, but Ronan’s in love. He doesn’t know what it is, his vocabulary too inadequate to describe his fondness, this fondness, but he feels something burning inside him every time he’s around Adam.

He feels alive.

Adam Parrish makes him feel alive.

\---

“Adam, hey. _Adam_. Adam. Man,” Noah says, his pitch rising with each syllable until he finally gets Adam to return to the flower shop from wherever he was in his mind. “ _You_ , my child, need to stop _that_.”

Adam looks down at what Noah’s looking at, his eyes still distant and dazed, his interrupted thoughts still lingering like the perpetual smell of flowers in his clothes.

“Stop what?” Adam looks back up, not really getting what Noah’s trying to say, and repeats himself as he brings his hand up to rub over an old wound.

“ _That_ ,” Noah says again, emphasizing this time, though, by pointing a translucent finger at Adam’s face. “That weird as hell grin.”

“That — what?”

“Alright, alright, we all know you want to do the frick frack with the tattooed badboy Ronan, _don’t deny it_ , it’s as clear and see through as I am, ha, ha, but let’s not nauseate customers because of that dumb face of yours.”

Adam stares at Noah, offended and embarrassed, but a little more distressed that he’d been so careless at work, and bites his lip. Noah simply shakes his head and whispers to himself, “Gross ‘in love with Ronan’ grin.”

\---

Days later, Ronan’s among the flowers again. He glances at the guy who appeared beside him without any sound or notice. He’s there yet… not quite. Ronan can’t put his finger on it, but he can sense something weird, like something doesn’t quite belong.

“Yo, looking for anything in particular?” Noah asks, shoving his hands in the pockets of his apron, looking like any other part-timing teen around, but not really.

Ronan doesn’t reply, just stares. Something’s amiss, he can tell, but what exactly, he can’t. He hears Adam’s footsteps getting closer, how fucking deep is he in if he can even recognize his footsteps, _god_ , but he doesn’t waste a breath. “What are you?”

The grin that Noah sends his way makes Ronan feel like he’s back in first grade again, with his first ever paper snowflake clasped tight between his fingers, like the first time their dog licked his little trembling hand, like the first time he tasted his mother’s pancakes.

“I’m Noah,” he begins.

 

_No, no, Noah. God. Stop. Don’t._

“I’m the clichéd cute ghost who haunts pretty flower shops.”

_Noah, damn it._

Adam knits his brows, not sure why Noah’s speaking to someone, to _Ronan_ , and why can Ronan see him again? Ronan clicks his tongue, and Adam doesn’t think he can bear it if he’s punched square in the face by this boy he’s ready to give up everything for.

“So,” Ronan starts, picking at the leather straps around his wrist absentmindedly. “If I do this.” At which he brings a hand towards Noah, and gently presses his palm against his chest, pushes, until his hand disappears in Noah and comes out through his back.

“That feels gross,” Noah says, frowning, yet showing no signs of discomfort. Ronan draws his hand back, and Adam’s mouth parts, still disbelieving.

As Ronan examines his hand, his eyes become more focused, wilder, and Adam isn’t sure when he got so close to both of them. Noah asks, “And what’s up with you, Ronan?”

Ronan flashes his teeth, his gaze darting from Noah to Adam, lingering, his features sharper and more pronounced than seconds ago.

“I dream.”

\---

They end up meeting a lot more, after that. What they’re doing is called friendship, Calla had explained, with a roll of her eyes and a remark about how disgusting youth is. But later, Adam had heard her laugh and mutter _really disgusting_ in a tone so fond, that he ended up buying her some flowers.

“Hey, Parrish,” Ronan says, smirking, now, _here_. He’s sitting on the step ladder that’s propped up against the wall of the shop, just next to Adam’s first ever poinsettia display, and the sight makes something well up in Adam, like he’s seeing something others can’t, like this is specially for him, and he wants to groan at his own sappiness. Sentimentality was not something Adam was familiar with before he met Ronan Lynch.

Sighing effortlessly, Adam replies, “I’m not throwing roses at you to see how many you can catch in your mouth —”

“God, that was once.”

“Twice. Also, no, we’re not tying Noah’s feet with ribbons again to see if he’ll display balloon-like tendencies.”

Ronan grunts and jumps off his makeshift throne — if you said Ronan didn’t look like a king, then, Adam would fight you — and stalks towards Adam and rests his palms on the counter. Uncontrollably, Adam breathes in, can envision forests and dreams and Ronan’s skin beneath his fingertips because imagining Ronan is all he can do, all he’ll allow himself to do.

“Whatever, you stupid florist.”

“You — You boneheaded schoolboy.”

“You dimwitted twat.”

“You imbecilic cretin.”

Noah groans from beside them and they both jump, startled by the sudden materialization of his body out of, literally, nowhere.

“Oh my god, stop flirting already.”

\---

Gansey stares at Ronan, and Ronan stares back. No one speaks, so without really planning it, it turns into a staring match. Ronan wins, of course, and Gansey shakes his head as he leaves the room. Ronan catches words and phrases like _idiot, worrying me, Blue was right, big idiot_ and takes another swig from his bottle of Coca-Cola.

\---

“Wait, you dreamed of barking shoeflowers? How do you even —” Adam sighs. “No, don’t answer that.”

Ronan’s grinning from across the counter, a receipt of the flowers Gansey wanted for Helen’s birthday crumpled in his hand. Blue calls out from the back that it’ll be done in a while; Adam resists the urge to tell her to take her time.

Noah whistles from where he’s floating near the ceiling, and the tune is rather unsettling. “Get a life, man,” Ronan says, looking up at Noah, seeming quite proud of himself for the joke.

“I’m possessing you one day and making you crossdress, you punk,” Noah retorts, his voice distant and his body fading a little when Ronan makes another joke. Adam knows that Noah’s tantrums will just end up with them having to call out for him and order his favourite flowers for the next week, because no one knows why, but Noah’s presence in the shop is tied with the life of the flowers in there, and so he laughs and calls Noah down and they talk about Ronan’s dreams again.

Ronan is impossible and outrageous and beautiful and around him, Adam’s just a lonely child reaching for the stars. But Adam’s been looking down for so long that he doesn’t know how the stars look like, shine like anymore, and maybe Ronan’s not in reach, after all.

He catches Ronan gazing at him while Noah rambles about how TV is only black and white for him, _side effects of dying_ , how anime isn’t fun without colour, and Adam averts his eyes. It feels like Ronan can see through him, can decipher him, understand him, and nothing scares Adam more than that. No one can do that, no one.

Ronan is a blade, sharp and dangerous and Adam’s already full of scabs that can’t be peeled off but here he is again, playing with something he should stay away from, and he’s scared. He admires, but fears. He needs more, yet wants none. He loves, but he’s shattered. What is he doing?

\---

On another night, much colder than it’s supposed to be, it’s been an hour since they closed and Noah’s floating around, a handmade flower crown atop his head, humming a song that brings physical pain to Adam, but he gives up trying to get Noah to stop after four tries.

Adam’s preparing a plan for a display for the shop, and he’s made approximately minus seven percent progress. He’s about to call it a day when the bell chimes and — Ronan.

“Sorry, we’re closed.” It’s something about the way Ronan’s looking at him that makes Adam grip the pen tighter as his fingers go cold.

Ronan simply turns to look up at Noah. “What the fuck is he doing?”

The question is directed at Adam, and Adam has no words. He drops his pen, rubs his hands together and begins, “Uh, haunting…me?”

Ronan’s laugh is everything he isn’t — warm, loving, safe. Adam wishes he could record it and play it on a neverending loop — play it on his birthday, his funeral, everyday. Once again, he notices Ronan’s eyes on him, and he freezes, _was I too obvious, does he know_ , a fear once embedded in him never letting go.

Ronan looks away, at the box of ribbons and wrapping paper that arrived some minutes ago. Still avoiding Adam’s gaze, Ronan says, “Hey, Parrish,” and it’s more of a question than anything, but Adam doesn’t say a thing.

It takes a few seconds, with Noah’s annoying humming as the background music, before Ronan steps closer, leans in, and goes, “We’re going stargazing,” and it’s not a question this time.

Noah’s stupid flower crown falls in Adam’s empty hands and Ronan and Adam look up, only to see Noah standing upside down, his feet planted on the ceiling, and he’s wiggling his eyebrows and thumbs-upping them like a full fledged pervert.

\---

They’re sitting on the hood of Ronan’s BMW, staring up at the dark sky scattered with stars here and there, with extraordinary constellations Adam can’t name. Every second Adam spends with Ronan is a fresh reminder of how different they are, how unattainable Ronan is, yet how close to someone as tiny as Adam, as empty and nameless.

Ronan is Ronan Lynch and Adam Parrish is Adam.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing.

\---

What is he doing. What is he doing. What am I doing. What am I doing. What are we doing. What are we doing.

\---

Ronan can see Adam’s breaths appearing in puffs and disappearing into nothing, and Ronan knows shit about stars, but he’s out here with Adam and nothing seems as bright as Adam does, to him. There’s something about this boy that Ronan can’t understand even now, and he’s been in love since the first moment outside the shop, but he doesn’t know what to do anymore.

So he reaches for the small scar on the side of Adam’s neck, the one that’s always hidden when he wears his apron, and he can hear the breath Adam sucks in. Ronan doesn’t need to ask it out loud, just lets his fingers graze Adam’s skin, his own skin sparking with every passing second.

“I don’t talk about it,” Adam replies to the unspoken question, his voice cool, wistful, dishonest, but Ronan lets it go. There are many things Ronan doesn’t talk about either.

They sit in silence, until Adam says, in a low voice, “I wish I could dream,” mostly to himself. But Ronan hears it.

“Hah. And I wish I could sleep.”

Adam looks at Ronan, then back up at the sky. Ronan’s not a philosophical jackass, neither does he see the real beauty in things like flowers and whispered words and the sound of ocean waves, but ever since he saw Adam, he’s begun to think otherwise. Adam’s slowly bringing meaning into his life, arranging him like he does flowers, his fingers gentle yet intent, and Adam is _his_ star, his own, his very own, Ronan concludes, after austere moments of scrutiny — the center of his entire world.

Ronan leans towards Adam ever so slightly, no one would have noticed, but Adam does. His panic is so obvious that Ronan smirks, a natural reaction. It’s just the two of them, lost and alone and each others’, but they’re full of doubts and fears and maybe — maybe they’ll never be together, maybe they’ll never be together like _this_ , content with just the other’s warmth, the other’s breath.

Seconds turn into minutes, and they say nothing, battles being fought and worlds being made, destroyed inside of them. Adam swats at a mosquito absentmindedly, and Ronan holds his hand.

“I saw you in the shop that day,” Ronan mutters.

His hand cups Adam’s neck, and his fingers rub Adam’s scar. He’s trembling. Adam’s trembling too. It’s cold, but it’s not. He’s burning up, each touch now voltaic.

“Why do you…” _like me?_

“…I don’t know.”

“I’ll screw it up, I’ll —” his unspoken words hang like knives in the air between them, “— and I’ll — You’re _Ronan Lynch_.” Adam doesn’t realize he’s whispering, he’s holding his breath. He repeats, quieter, “You’re Ronan Lynch.”

A car honks in the distance, and Ronan’s staring into Adam’s eyes, his heart hammering against his chest.

“Close your eyes,” Ronan trails off, and Adam does that, his hands clutch at Ronan’s jacket like it’s his only foothold because it is, it is, it is until it suddenly isn’t.

Because when Ronan’s lips touch Adam’s, it makes sense. It makes sense how Adam’s here in his arms right now, how he’s shaking just as much as Ronan is; how, to Ronan, he’s come to mean so much, so soon. And when Adam pulls him closer, Ronan dies a little inside because even though there are a million things he doesn’t know about Adam yet, it still makes sense.

\---

That morning, Adam wakes up feeling like he’s flying, like his heart isn’t all that empty, like he’s somehow okay. And Ronan’s sitting beside him, toying with something in his hand, so Adam sits up too, not sure if he’s supposed to say _good morning_ or _hey_ or nothing at all, so he smiles because that’s what he really, truly wants to do.

“It’s all because of damned Noah,” Ronan says, eventually, his back towards Adam.

Adam leans over Ronan’s shoulder, treading lightly, scared to get too close, scared to be too far. And before he can see what Ronan has in his hands, Ronan’s turning and bringing the flower crown he’s holding to their eye level. “I’m killing that ghost.”

“Killing! He’s —” Adam laughs, tears threatening to spill from the corners of his eyes. “He’s _already_ dead.”

And Adam’s still laughing when Ronan places the flower crown on his head, but stops and wipes his eyes when he feels tears of another kind trying to escape them. It’s the way Ronan’s looking at him. It’s _always_ the way Ronan’s looking at him. It’s how Ronan’s touching his cheek. It’s how this is more than just fondness, more than just affection.

“Adam, you’re so stupid,” is all Ronan says, and Adam’s pathetic mind is still stuck on _Adam, Adam, Adam_.

He’s not crying, he’s not about to cry, he won’t cry, he _won’t_. So he brings his cold fingers up to touch Ronan’s lips, his voice just a whisper when he laughs. “You’re way worse.”

\---

A moment of silence for our dead, translucent flower boy who hung out at the flower shop every now and then, and for his pride which was shattered into a thousand translucent pieces when Ronan kicked him out of the shop in a rather forceful manner when Ronan and Adam saw Noah’s ‘Ronan weds Adam’ flower arrangements as they walked into the shop together a day later.

Noah thinks Ronan takes being _tsundere_ to a whole new level, Adam thinks Noah’s a jobless airhead, and Ronan simply snickers at that.

\---

When Ronan kisses Adam, it’s soft and warm and Adam can distinguish the smell of the lilies on display beside them from Ronan’s cologne and _Ronan_ and so he moves down to Ronan’s neck, breathing in and in and in.

It’s way past closing time and Adam can hear Noah groaning from a corner of the shop, his faint voice whispering _get a room, for the love of all that’s living_ and _bloody dead like, I don’t know, me?_

But Adam doesn’t let go and he’s come to know so much about this boy, this beautiful yet broken boy who’s seen hell but is slowly putting himself back together and learning how to love, _teaching_ Adam how to love, and he tightens his grip on Ronan’s shirt just a little more. And Ronan’s come to realize so many more of Adam’s secrets, his nothings, his fears, and he kisses Adam’s temples in a manner so chaste that Adam feels like he doesn’t deserve it, can’t accept it, won’t allow it.

(But somehow, he does.)

 

So when Ronan _finally_ steps two centimeters away from Adam, Adam blinks up at Ronan as the corners of Ronan’s mouth tug upward ever so slightly.

“Parrish, I swear to god,” Ronan mutters, his voice soft but hoarse, the flush on his cheeks dull but still there, a pleasant reminder of what Adam could do to Ronan Lynch.

They kiss again, and again, and a lot more agains until Noah starts hurling cyclamens at Ronan, chanting, _cyclamens, cyclamens, goodbye, goodbye_ and Adam almost collapses because he’s laughing so hard.

Ronan leaves once he makes sure Adam doesn’t choke and Adam closes up and leaves soon after, and when he steps out into the cold air of an unusually cold night, he lets the goofiest smile he’s smiled in ages make it’s way to his face, because he’s actually just a stupid kid, and also because his body’s been tingling since the moment he saw Ronan and it can’t seem to stop.

He wraps his scarf a bit tighter around himself, and when he touches his lips, the lips that were on Ronan’s, the lips that were on Ronan’s skin, on Ronan’s cheeks, on Ronan’s palm, on _Ronan_ , he doesn’t stop smiling.

\------

 _I fucked up again so_ , is what the tiny note attached to the small bunch of asters Adam finds waiting on the hood of his car says. As he reaches for it, his fingers trembling against the cold and the realization that he’s always falling more and more in love with this boy who dreams, who creates, who has worlds at his feet for him to burn, but still chooses to forge delicate existences like these, all for Adam, he wonders if he can ever breathe around Ronan again (because Ronan is everything and more to Adam, and Adam would abandon all he has if Ronan just says the word).

 

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me on [tumblr](http://aobaba.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/sharrkans) because HOW DO I HANDLE THESE PYNCH RELATED EMOTIONS. I FEEL VERY BETRAYED. PLEASE LOVE ME.


End file.
